


Over The Moon

by orphan_account



Category: Infinite Undiscovery
Genre: M/M, Magic, New Game Plus Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-30
Updated: 2010-03-30
Packaged: 2017-10-08 13:14:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Savio closes his eyes and tries not to think about elegant hands and pale skin and a smile just challenging enough to be interesting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Over The Moon

Savio's new apprentice is astoundingly beautiful, and he has to admit that at first he mistakes him for a woman. He is tall and slender, hair worn long and gleaming past his shoulders, features small and deceptively delicate. But when he speaks, his voice is deep and male, tinged with just a bit of arrogance.

"My name is Kiriya." He doesn't bow, doesn't show the reverence that is due an Aristo from a meag. Savio doesn't chastise him, just smiles, intrigued.

\------

"His family is against him becoming a sorcerer," the Master of the guild tells him. He is an old man, hair silver-flecked, spine bent, as if under the weight of the circle of light that frames his back. "They're old fashioned, you see, from one of the more provincial villages. His father is the magistrate. They don't trust the kingdom or anything that has to do with it."

Savio clasps his hands behind his back serenely. "Then why is he here, might I ask?"

"His power is…considerable, and also volatile at this point in his life. It's been causing problems in his hometown. The guild has been forced to intervene."

The afternoon sunlight slants down through the window, gleaming on the smooth, polished wood of the guild-master's desk. "Why send him to me? Am I not too young for an apprentice, sir?"

The guild master smiles a little wryly. "I believe that you will be the best man for this job, for a number of reasons."

Savio bows his head. "As you say, sir."

\------

 

Kiriya moves into the tower bedroom, the one that hasn't been used since Savio inherited the house from his old master. Savio brings him there himself, up a long winding wooden staircase.

"I know it isn't much, but I trust you'll be comfortable."

Kiriya's lips curl slightly as he surveys the narrow bed and bare worktable.

"Comfortable. Right."

"I understand that it was not your to choice to come here," Savio says after a few seconds. "And I know how difficult it must be to be taken away from all the things you know."

"Oh yes, is that right?" Kiriya rounds on him, eyes blazing. Savio can feel the magic crackling over his skin. "You know all about it, don't you? You know all about drying up your village's lake in your sleep? Or did you kill an old man when you tried to help him to his feet?" Kiriya's face is suddenly twisted and angry, eyes flashing. Savio feels his grief, a tight, sharply pulsing knot inside him, suffusing his body with power. The lunaglyph on his hand glows white-hot.

"Has your father forbidden you from seeing your brother and sister because it isn't safe to be in the same room as them? Are you thought to be such a curse that your mother prays she'd given birth to an _unblessed_ instead?"

Wind kicks up in the tower room, sending the curtains fluttering, whipping Kiriya's hair up in a wild halo, making Savio's robes billow like a sail at sea. Never before has he felt so much power and so little control. It really is a wonder that Kiriya's hometown hasn't been blasted off the map.

"Calm yourself, Kiriya" Savio commands, putting as much authority and as much magic as he can into his voice. He feels Kiriya's power flinch in the face of his own, shivering down, bowing before the stronger force.

His magic is young and wild, all anger and flaring emotion, the turmoil of youth, while Savio's is calm and endless--a deep, placid lake to Kiriya's storm-tossed sea.

Savio understand now why the master has chosen him to take in the volatile youth. There are others more powerful and more experienced than him, but none who can rival him for control.

If he can only...he forces himself across the room, one foot in front of the other, pushing himself against the rush of Kiriya's power until he can raise a hand and touch him

The boy's eyes are wide and scared, and he flinches when Savio's fingers trace the line of his jaw, moving down to touch his cheek. His eyes flutter shut as their magic flows together, entwining, testing. Savio lets his breath out in a long sight, delving deep, searching for the root of his anger, for the floodgates that can close all that emotion back up. He explores the inside of Kiriya's mind, moving past doors and memories closed to him, locked tightly with shame and rage and hate for the moon that has given him this power. Savio leaves those be.

He tries to move quickly past his desires as well, but Kiriya is young and they move in a howl of wants and impulses that haven't yet been tempered by control. He catches glimpses of things he knows he shouldn't be seeing, images and sound, but they are so jumbled that there is no way to tell what is memory and what is fantasy and what Kiriya isn't even aware that he himself wants.

Savio moves past all that and goes to the base of Kiriya's power, finding it, taking it in his hands and calming it, like a frightened rabbit, petting its ears and whispering soothing words.

Kiriya makes a sound as his magic calms, and Savio isn't prepared for the warm rush of answering power that sweeps over him, makes his heart race and his skin shiver. He pulls back just in time to stop the youth from delving into his own mind.

The wind drops as quickly as it had appeared, Kiriya's eyes widening once before he sways on the spot and topples into Savio's arms.

He lies him down on his bed, smoothing his hair back from his face, caressing the line of his jaw before he remembers himself and leaves him in the tower. Expending that much power in such a small amount of time takes energy, and the boy will most likely sleep away the rest of the day and the night as well.

Savio should think about getting some rest himself—calming Kiriya had taken more energy that he would have thought, and he can feel his body aching. He can't imagine what it will be like if the boy needs to be calmed like that every time they have a conversation.

Still, at least now he knows that their magic is compatible—they can work together as long as Savio can teach him some control. He shudders at the memory of Kiriya's power on his skin, the way it had felt to brush against his mind.

Closing the door to his bedroom, Savio casts his robe onto the chair behind his cluttered desk, unbuttoning his trousers and wrapping his hand round the arousal he's had since he'd first felt Kiriya's magic.

It only takes a few quick strokes to break him, shuddering and biting down on his lip, catching the mess in his hand. He is immediately angry with himself—this isn't the way a master should be thinking about his apprentice, even if that apprentice's magic is so complimentary to his own, so arousing. Savio closes his eyes and tries not to think about elegant hands and pale skin and a smile just challenging enough to be interesting.

\-------

 

He doesn't see much of Kiriya over the next few days. He keeps mostly to his room up in the tower, and Savio isn't sure if he's moping or just exhausted. Savio himself can barely keep from nodding off, body still trying to compensate for the power he had lost trying to calm Kiriya down.

When Kiriya finally does emerge, he is sullen and silent, and Savio finds it difficult to do any work on his spells in the laboratory. The moon is on the wane, which would be cause enough, but having another sorcerer in the house--especially an irritable one--alters the flow of power so much he can't concentrate. He wonders how his own master had dealt with it, when he himself had lived here, young and untrained.

Eventually, Savio suggests, half-heartedly, that they start Kiriya's education. That earns him a sharp look and breath of power over his skin, but a moment later Kiriya's shoulders sag. The afternoon light slants in through the kitchen window, striking his hair, making him glow like one of the moon's children.

"If we must," he says, after a moment.

\-------

 

"This isn't working," Kiriya announces, pushing back the low stone bowl. He's spent the last quarter of an hour staring into the blank silver surface of the water. One of the first things a sorcerer learns under his apprenticeship, Savio knows, is how to call images into air or water. Even if they are shapeless, or meaningless, someone with Kiriya's power level should have no trouble at all. Savio himself had taken to it almost at once, making him the youngest Seer to ever be made an Aristo.

"You just need to concentrate," Savio says, as soothingly as possible.

"I _am_ concentrating."

"Clear your mind. Let it fill with nothing save the desire to see."

Kiriya's jaw is tight and his fists are balled on the tabletop. He is much too tense to perform any sort of magic at all, not without risking a repeat of what had happened in the tower, and Savio's not so sure that he'll be able to stop him again.

He watches a thin drop of sweat shake its way loose from Kiriya's hair and make its way down the elegant curve of his neck, to disappear under the collar of his shirt. He can imagine a few ways of making Kiriya relax.

_Stop_, he orders himself. _You're a grown man. Control yourself._

"What are you looking at?" Kiriya demands, and Savio realizes he's been staring at the swoop of his shoulders for nearly a minute. He blinks rapidly.

"N-nothing. I apologize."

Kiriya gives him that look again, the one that is wondering how he got this job.

"This is pointless," he says, standing up. "I can't scry. Why don't we just accept that fact." He flicks his hair off of his shoulders. "And it's wretchedly hot in here."   
He crosses the laboratory, wrenching open the window above a set of very delicate, very finely calibrated charmd that Savio has spent a week working on. They tremble as the air touches them.

"Don't touch--." Savio sighs and shakes his head when Kiriya glances back at him quizzically. "Never mind."

"What is that out there?" Kiriya is up on his toes, peering out into the twilight.

Savio shrugs. "A greenhouse. My master used it, but I could never get anything to grow. Just don't have the knack for it, I suppose."

Kiriya makes a tiny noise in his throat. He's gazing out the window like he's lost something.

"You're welcome to take a look around it, if you'd like," Savio says. He looks at the basin on the table for a moment, before shaking his head and emptying it with a wave of his hand. They'll try again later.

\------

Savio can feel his nails digging into the palms of his hands as he curls his fists tight. "I need more time," he says.

The Master taps a hand on his knee, stroking a finger along his beard, as if searching for inspiration. After a moment or two, he sighs. "I'm sorry, Savio, but if you cannot find a way to control his power, then he will have to be dealt with through the only other alternative we have."

He should have known it would be bad news, for the Master to take the time to pay him a visit at home.

"You mean you're going to kill him." The words taste sour in Savio's mouth, closing his throat with something that feels frighteningly akin to emotion. He's only had Kiriya in his house for a month--they barely speak. He barely sees Kiriya, and the few times he does they have argued. Twice that argument had escalated into Savio needing to calm his power the way he'd done in the tower on the first evening.

The old man sighs and shakes his head. "I don't _want_ to kill anyone, Savio. I simply see no other alternative. He is dangerous, a wild force. For the good of the kingdom, he will need to be dealt with." __

"I will teach him how to control his power. I just need a little more time," Savio repeats. It has become a litany. "We're…we're making progress."

The master raises a bushy eyebrow. "Oh yes? Is that right?"

"Yes," Savio lies. "You will see improvement very soon."

The master shakes his head. "So much fiery emotion, Savio! It is unseemly for an Aristo."

Savio hangs his head, admonished. "Of course, my lord."

\-------

 

Savio stands at the desk in his laboratory, staring down into the depths of the scrying bowl. He wants to look into the future, wants to discover what fate the moon has ordered for his apprentice, but he can't quite make himself do it. He isn't sure he wants to know. There is no doubting the master's word—he will order Kiriya killed if he grows to be too great of a threat.

He sighs, trying to decide what he should make himself work on tonight, when there is a flash and a bang, a swiftly bitten-off cry of pain. Savio wheels back around just in time to see another flash through the tiny window. A light is flickering inside the greenhouse, like magic, or fire.

Savio curses in about four different languages, running for the back door, so quickly he nearly trips on the end of his robe. The door to the small, overgrown yard sticks, so he throws his shoulder against it, before stumbling forward with a yelp. Someone (and he can guess who) had oiled and replaced the hinges. The door doesn't so much as squeak anymore.

Savio stumbles across the garden, robes whispering over the overgrown grass. He throws open the door to the greenhouse, and stops short.

It's as if a jungle has sprung up overnight. Flowering vines climb the walls, leaping across the vaulted glass ceiling. Tiny trees had burst up from the ground, pines and palms and apple trees heavy with fruit, blossoms spilling over from pots. A flurry of color and a veritable bouquet of scents assault Savio as he walks in. He has to stifle a sneeze.

A long, low moan drifts from the far side of the greenhouse, followed by a gasp of pain.

"Kiriya?" Savio picks his way across the greenhouse, brushing aside hanging vines. He can feel the magic in the plants, pulsing green and alive all around him, so different than the tangle of emotion that had hung around his laboratory for the last month or so.

Kiriya is on the ground, hair thrown across his face in a flurry of gold. His clothes are disheveled and dirt-streaked, but that isn't what commands Savio's attention. Beside him, lying discarded in the dirt, is his hand. It has been lopped off at the wrist, oozing blood sluggishly. As Savio watches in horror, it twitches, fingers jerking, crawling like some nightmare specter through the dirt. There is a tiny flash, and Savio feels the flow of power as the hand attaches itself back to Kiriya's wrist, the lunaglyph flashing bright.

Kiriya raises his head. His face is dirt streaked, tears leaving two clean, perfect trails down his cheeks. His jaw is clenched with anguish, breath rasping through bared teeth as the skin on his wrist knits itself cleanly.

"Kiriya…what…" Savio feels his stomach clench ominously as his apprentice flexes his fingers. "What are you doing?"

"I…I tried…" Kiriya's voice breaks, trembling through the words. "I tried b-burning it, carving it out." He clenches his fist, slams it down into the earth. The glyph glows bright with his anger. "I thought I could cut if off, but it just comes back." He beats the ground with his fist again and there's a tremble in the air, a tiny, slender sapling sprouting where his fingers touch.

Savio looks around at the plants—the pale pink roses sprouting along the ground, the stand of daffodils beside a rusty watering can. Have they all come from Kiriya's anguish, an offshoot of barely controlled power?

"Kiriya…"

Savio reaches for him, but Kiriya flinches back, like a frightened animal. Savio lets his hand fall.

\-------

 

An hour or so later, Savio is tinkering with a spell at his worktable, utterly unable to concentrate. His mind keeps returning to the sight of Kiriya's hand creeping across the greenhouse floor to connect to his wrist, the pain and hatred in his eyes.

There is a bang and Savio's shoulders clench. He is still surprised and shaky, nerves stretched tight from the magic and the strain of having a dangerous and fairly unstable man in his house.

Kiriya comes in through the back door, face scrubbed and hair smooth and combed, so pristine that it looks like he used magic on it. Savio wonders if all the plants in the greenhouse really had been a mistake, or if Kiriya can control his power better than he has been letting on.

"Kiriya…"

Kiriya ignores him, pacing across the laboratory and up the short flight of stairs into the parlor. He leaves through the front door, slamming it with a sharp hint of finality. Savio wonders if he's leaving for good.

\-------

That night Savio is woken by a clattering downstairs, the rattling of the door and the creaking of the floorboards. He's left the wards undone, in hopes that Kiriya would reappear in the night. It sounds like _someone_ has reappeared, but they are making too much noise for a single sorcerer, no matter how fussy and violent he may be. Savio gets up, slipping on the closest thing at hand, a black and gold robe he'd been presented as a gift by a northern village when he'd foreseen a drought in the coming summer.

He considers casting a charm of silence, but whoever has broken into his house is making so much noise that he doubts he'll need it. If they are robbers, they are the most inexpert he could ever imagine. Breaking into an Aristo's home, defacing his property, is punishable by death.

Downstairs, the parlor is in shadow. He lights the lamp with a flick of his mind and a tiny brush of the moon's power, casting a wavering glow over the room just in time to see a man with close-cropped hair deposit a limp Kiriya onto the sofa. Savio nearly trips down the stairs in his haste as the man straddles Kiriya's thighs, hands going to his belt.

"You!" he barks, putting as much authority into his voice as he can when he's wearing nothing but a dressing gown.

The man looks up, shooting Savio a salacious grin. "Don't you worry yourself there. My new friend invited me in."

Kiriya's head lolls against the cushions and Savio catches a whiff of brandy in strong enough concentration to kill a small cart horse.

"He is utterly drunk," Savio says thinly. "He didn't invite you anywhere."

The man is dressed in standard-issue dark trousers and clanking silver greaves. Most likely he is a soldier, off-duty for the night, or one of the private guards that roam the city with royalty and visiting dignitaries. Definitely not the sort of man Savio wants in his home, manhandling his apprentice.

"Fuck off, would you?" the soldier snaps. "We're sort of busy at the moment." He goes back to tugging off Kiriya's belt.

"You need to leave here at once." Savio holds his robe closed at the waist as he sweeps across the room. "You are not welcome."

"Oh yeah?" The man gives him a vicious grin, the sort that is worn by men who are cruel and have no one to stop them. "What are you going to do about it, old man?" He doesn't move, except to slide a possessive hand over Kiriya's ass. "Are you going to make me? Call the city guard? I _am_ the city guard."

_Old man_, Savio thinks, as he let's the magic suffuse his veins. _I'm not even thirty yet_.

He can feel the touch of the moon, even through the roof and the cloud cover, and he lets it fill him with its grace. He takes a slow breath, allowing it to flow through his blood and bloom in a ring of golden light around his back.

On the sofa, the man's eyes grow wide with fear. He takes Kiriya by the shoulders and gives him a shake. "You didn't say anything about a fucking Aristo boyfriend!" His eyes flick from Savio, back down to Kiriya, as if searching for some way out of the mess he's blundered into. He scrambles to his feet, dipping a clumsy bow and backing slowly to the door. "I'm sorry, sir," he splutters. "Please, _please_ don't kill me. I-I've got a—a wife and a family in town…t-they need me!"

"No, you don't," Savio says tiredly. He can taste the lie on the air. "And that would have been more believable if you hadn't been about to undress my apprentice." The man cowers by the door, as power gathers hot in the palms of Savio's hands. He isn't sure what he's planning to do to the man, but before he can, Kiriya makes a low, pained sound.

"Get out!" Savio snaps instead. "Get out while my mercy holds!"

He doesn't bother to watch the guard scramble away, turning instead to Kiriya. His hair is a mess and his lips are red and bruised, like someone's been biting at them. As he reaches for him, Kiriya's eyes flutter open.

"You scared away my date," he says, and he sounds reproachful, much too reproachful to be as drunk as Savio thought he was.

"Date. Rapist, more like." He sits down on the edge of the couch, before straddling Kiriya's legs awkwardly and pulling him into a sitting position. He smells overwhelmingly of drink, and underneath that of sweat and the slightly sweet musk of someone else's cologne.

"He wasn't lying." Kiriya's eyes are open and glassy, reflecting the wavering light of the lamp. His lunaglyph is pulsing restlessly on his hand. "I invited him back here."

Savio sits back a little. "You let him into my house?"

Kiriya's mouth stretches up at the corners. "Yes, I did. Some of us have needs, oh mighty lord." He makes no mention of what had happened in the greenhouse, of what had no doubt prompted this night of debauchery. Savio follows his lead.

Instead he says, almost without meaning to, "I could get you brought up on charges for talking to me like that."

"Oh yes?" Kiriya's eyes harden. "Do it, then."

Savio looks at him for a few moments, before sighing, taking him under the armpits and hauling him up. "Come on, then. Let's get you to bed."

Kiriya flinches slightly as the light of the moon falls over him. Savio lets out a thin breath, allowing the light to fade from his back. It used to take concentration to maintain, shortly after he became an Aristo, but no longer. Now he can call it to him whenever he needs it, let it go just as easily. When he touches Kiriya, the lunaglyph on his arm glows bright, responding to his presence.

He pulls him to his feet, where he promptly falls back down again. "How is it that you are so drunk," Savio asks in wonder, "That you can't stand up, but you can talk to me?"

"Magic," Kiriya says, before he giggles. It's odd, coming from him, the way it would be odd if a cat started barking.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"I'm being serious," Kiriya grouses as Savio half-carries, half-drags him up the stairs. "I can make it so that drink only effects me physically. I can still think and talk…" His voice is muffled against Savio's shoulder. "It's very simple."

"Truly?" Savio steers him into the tower room. The bed is unmade, the desk strewn with papers, with leather-bound books that look like they've come out of Savio's workshop. "I've never heard of anyone being able to do that before. You will have to teach me how."

Kiriya grunts, as Savio tips him onto his bed.

His hair spreads across the pillow in a blur of gold, shirt riding up to reveal a few inches of pale stomach. His arms are lying at either side of him, and before he realizes it, Savio reaches out a hand and strokes his finger across the back of Kiriya's wrist, tracing the delicate bones. It's perfect and whole, and Savio can barely believe what he'd seen in the greenhouse had actually transpired.

"That tickles," Kiriya says quietly.

Savio draws his hand back. "I-I'm sorry. It's…I just…"

Kiriya laughs, soft and low, the sound settling into Savio's belly, making his cheeks warm. What is wrong with him?

"For an Aristo, you aren't very good at being emotionless," Kiriya says. He's smiling again, in that way that says he knows something Savio doesn't.

"We aren't emotionless," Savio says, hardly able to believe that he's admitting it to himself, let alone to a meag. "We just like to pretend we are. Appearing that way makes the hard choices…easier."

"Hard choices like deciding to kill an apprentice if he can't learn to control his power?"

Savio opens his mouth, before shutting it again and sitting back. "How did you know about that?" he asks quietly.

Kiriya smiles, again, and he does look drunk now, like he's stopped doing whatever it was he'd been doing to make his mind clear.

"I might not be able to scry, but that doesn't mean I can't eavesdrop." He glances up, eyes flicking to the ceiling. "I heard you talking to the old man. Does he want to kill me, or will you have to do it?"

"That will not happen." It comes out more fiercely than he means it to. Kiriya looks slightly taken aback. "I will protect you."

"Protect me? You'd fight the Sorcerer's Guild for me?" Kiriya laughs. It is not a pleasant sound. "Good luck."

"Then we'll leave," Savio says. "Go somewhere else. Somewhere your power isn't in danger of hurting anyone."

Kiriya looks at him like he's afraid there's something wrong with him. "Why would you do that for me? You barely know me."

"You're my apprentice. I'm responsible for you." Even to Savio's own ears, it sounds like a foolish excuse. Honestly, he doesn't know why he cares so much. It isn't just lust. And it isn't just duty—he has never had an apprentice before, but he doubts loyalty goes as far as giving up your life to protect your student. He wonders if he would feel so strongly if he hadn't seen Kiriya in the greenhouse earlier that day.

"I'll let you sleep," he says, making to stand up.

A slender hand wraps around his wrist. "Don't."

Kiriya is suddenly much closer, propping himself up groggily. Savio isn't really sure what happens between that moment and the next, but suddenly he's kissing him, pushing Kiriya back down against the bed, curling his fingers in his hair. Kiriya's moans low in his throat, mouth opening warm and soft. He tastes nearly overwhelmingly of brandy, at least at first.

They break apart after a few seconds, Savio realizing that he is resting very awkwardly between Kiriya's splayed legs, robe coming loose. Up close, Kiriya's eyes are very, very green.

"I…" He swallows. He hadn't meant that to happen. "I'm sorry--."

Kiriya makes a noise of irritation. "Don't start that. I know you want me. I can tell."

Savio is aghast. "How?"

"Because I'm not an idiot."

Savio can feel his face burning. He pulls away, trying to get enough leverage to get up and hold his robe closed at the same time. "I'm sorry, I can--."

Kiriya grabs him by the front of his robe. "For the most brilliant sorcerer of your age, you are very bad--." His hands tighten. "At taking a hint." He kisses him again, pulling him back down onto the bed. Hands go to Savio's robe, slipping it down his arms. Kiriya's fingers are eager and quick, sliding across his back, smoothing over his shoulders. He devours his breath, tongue pushing into his mouth.

Savio pulls back, breathing heavily, flushed all over, shaky and hot. "I thought you hated Aristos,"

Kiriya's hands drift through his hair. He can't seem to stop touching him. "I do hate Aristos." He nips lightly at his jaw. "But I don't hate you."

Kiriya's shirt is already partially undone, and it's an easy thing to yank it open, pull his belt the rest of the way out of his trousers, where the man downstairs had already begun. The skin of his chest and stomach is pale, nearly white. The lunglyph on his hand glows softly as Savio touches him, in response to the own power inside him. Savio trails a finger across it, feeling the intricacies of another sorcerer's power, making Kiriya shiver as it lights in response. He moans as Savio presses a bit of power into it, shuddering, and he can feel him, hard and hot against his leg.

"That…how can…"

"We're sorcerers," Savio says, smiling. "It's not all bad, magic."

Kiriya kisses him desperately, rolling his hips, making Savio moan, pushing his robe the rest of the way off. He pushes back against Kiriya, seeking friction, burying his head in his neck and biting down. He doesn't do things like this very often, or at all, since he'd become an Aristo. He'll be expected to marry one day—choose a girl of his standing, produce a viable heir. He's never had much interest in women, least of all the women at court. They tended to be quiet, and often frigid.

Kiriya was warm and pliant in his arms, gasping as he bit harder at his throat.

"Yes…yes, _Savio_."

He thinks that's the first time that Kiriya's said his name. He wants to hear it again, but not as much as he wants to taste his mouth again, so that will have to wait. Kiriya's gotten his hand between them, wrapping it around Savio's cock, stroking soft and practiced, making a deep sound in his throat.

He has the thought, as he plants his palms on the bed and pushes back, that he's just a substitute for the guard he chased away downstairs. At this point, Kiriya would probably have grabbed at whatever warm thing he could find. He tries to feel insulted by this, but Kiriya's finally managed to unbutton his trousers, and he suddenly doesn't care.

Savio licks into the hollow of his throat, tasting sweat and magic, gasping as Kiriya's hand goes between them, wrapping around their cocks, pressing them together. Savio groans and rocks his hips.

Kiriya's eyes are closed to slits, breath coming fast. Savio rests his arm above his head, leaning his weight onto it, letting his fingers drift through Kiriya's hair. It's thick and tangled like spun silk. Something blazes in Kiriya's eyes when Savio pulls it. He laces his other hand with Kiriya's, the one that isn't between them. Kiriya gasps, starts stroking harder, pushing his hips up to meet Savio's.

"Hurts…" he grunts. "It always hurts."

For a moment Savio is puzzled, but then he sees the steady glow of the lunaglyph, its light pulsing beneath his fingers. He can remember, vaguely, a time before he became an Aristo, when the light of the moon would pain him, when its grace would be too much for his body to contain.

Savio raises their joined hands, pressing his lips to the softly glowing mark. It blazes bright and Kiriya makes another sound of pain, body jolting against the bed. His breaths become harsh and pleading, as Savio runs his tongue along the delicate lines of power, tasting rain and wet earth, the bare essence of Kiriya's magic. And suddenly he knows what he can do.

"Give it up," he whispers, unable to keep from moving his hips in a steady staccato, so overwhelmed by power and by Kiriya pressed against him. "Let me have it."

Kiriya's eyes go wide for a moment, before he understands. Savio feels the moment their magic touches, the heady rush as it flows from Kiriya and bursts through his veins. He moans, skin tingling all over, light flashing behind his eyes as his body drinks it in.

Kiriya's shuddering beneath him, hand moving again, stroking them together. The light of the moon bathes them in its splendor as the ring on Savio's back glows bright, brighter than he's ever seen it before. He's never felt so powerful, like he could reach and touch the heavens, do _anything_.

He snarls his hands in Kiriya's hair and kisses him, desperately, feeling the hum of magic against his lips. His apprentice gasps brokenly, hips jerking, and Savio feels wet, slippery warmth against his stomach.

The magic and Kiriya's slick hand on his cock burst in a shuddering crescendo of sensation, shivering out across his skin, making him come in a desperate rush. He bites down on Kiriya's shoulder. His moans are muffled against his skin.

He is suddenly unable to hold himself up, collapsing on top of Kiriya in an ungainly sprawl of limbs, boneless and exhausted and utterly overwhelmed. Calm settles in on them like a blanket, their breath mingling. Savio can feel the beating of Kiriya's heart against his chest.

"Does it still hurt?" he asks after a moment.

Kiriya makes a strangled sort of noise that could have been a sob, or a laugh, but when he speaks his voice is fairly level.

"If you mean your elbow in my ribs, then yes." His eyes open a crack, luminous in the dark room. "You're heavier than you look, you know."

Savio moves to get off him, but Kiriya's hands cling to his shoulders, anchoring him.

"I didn't tell you to move."

Savio looks at him, but his eyes have drifted closed again. He settles back down, trying to arrange his limbs into something other than a sprawl. Kiriya's hands are drifting over his back. Their magic knows each other now, they are joined, in a way that Savio never has been with any other sorcerer. He says nothing aloud, but he knows that they will crave each other's touch. He also feels confident that he can keep Kiriya's power fairly stabilized, with time.

Kiriya makes a noise of irritation, one eye cracking open. "I can nearly hear you thinking." He grips him by the shoulder, pulling him down. There isn't much room on the narrow bed, but they manage to work themselves into a position that isn't too uncomfortable. "Go to sleep. And don't try anymore fancy magic. I'm going to feel sick enough as it is tomorrow." It only takes a few moments of silence, before his breathing evens out, his grip on Savio loosening as he drifts off to sleep.

Savio thinks he should probably get up, extricate himself while he still can. Clean up a bit. But Kiriya is warm, a reassuring weight against his side. He shifts his shoulders a little, trying to get comfortable without disturbing him. Kiriya mutters something thickly, reaching a hand out and grasping Savio by the wrist. Their lunaglyphs glow bright for a moment, before settling back down, like a cloud drifting across the moon.


End file.
